review for Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla on AllMovie

This is the fourth and undoubtedly worst embarrassment pairing horror icon Bela Lugosi and cheapo director William Beaudine, known as "One-Shot" for his frugal use of even the worst takes in a finished film. This time around, the declining Lugosi is cast as Dr. Zabor, a stereotypically sinister jungle doctor on the island of Kola-Kola. The real stars of this disaster though are Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, a bargain-basement Martin and Lewis knockoff who were eventually sued by Jerry Lewis himself, leading to the team's breakup in 1957. Mitchell doesn't look anything like Dean Martin, but Petrillo does a fairly good Lewis imitation, despite working with an absolutely awful script which has branded this film as one of the worst comedies of all time. After this mess, Lugosi's subsequent work for Edward D. Wood Jr. seems almost like an improvement, although -- to be fair -- the actor is not particularly bad here, just surrounded by ineptitude.